HR BREAKFAST CLUB MONTHLY FORUM

JOIN US FOR OUR APRIL HR BREAKFAST CLUB

Organisational Responses to Workplace Violence

Date | 8:00am Friday 17 April 2026

Venue | In person – BAL Lawyers, Canberra House, Level 9/40 Marcus Clarke Street, Canberra 

Presenter | Bill Pardy, Director at BAL Lawyers

Cost | Complimentary

At the HR Breakfast Club event on Friday 17 April 2026, BAL Director Bill Pardy will address ‘Organisational Responses to Workplace Violence’.

A useful starting point for employers is to treat workplace violence as a work health and safety (WHS) issue, rather than something that sits solely within a disciplinary or conduct management context.

Ideally, framing the discussion in a WHS context should shift the focus towards risks, systems, and accountability.

Workplace violence is not limited to physical assaults, but extends to threats, aggression, and other behaviours that create a risk to psychological health. Regulators are increasingly clear that these are psychosocial hazards that need to be managed in the same structured way as more traditional safety risks.

From a legal perspective, a WHS focus brings us to the primary duty to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health and safety of people in the workplace. That duty is broad enough to capture reasonably foreseeable risks of violence, including those arising from interactions with clients, customers, other staff, or members of the public.

Risk identification is often where practical gaps in WHS risk management emerge. Higher-risk environments are usually well understood, e.g. emergency services or frontline service roles, but in other workplaces contributing factors are not always systematically assessed. These factors can include staffing levels, supervision levels, record-keeping re prior incidents, and the clarity of escalation pathways.

Organisations that rely on their staff’s informal understanding of ways to manage the risks of workplace violence may struggle to deal with such risks in real time, as sometimes the threat of workplace violence can develop quickly.

Bill will also explore one of the available avenues to respond to workplace violence as a WHS risk by discussing the process of seeking workplace protection orders (WPOs), which some businesses may find appropriate if there is a known, ongoing risk of personal violence towards people in the workplace.

We would welcome your attendance at our upcoming HR Breakfast Club event. We invite you to come along, enjoy the breakfast and take part in an engaging discussion on this important subject for HR professionals and those who hold WHS responsibilities to maintain safe workplaces.

Alternatively you can email events@ballawyers.com.au

PAST FORUM SUMMARIES